Prospects and Risks of Using the Central Bank Digital Currency. Consequences for the Monetary System

DOI: 10.33917/es-3.201.2025.92-97

The article explores digital money characteristics of both central bank and private sector in both advanced and emerging market economies. Newly emerging forms of the private sector electronic money (digital coins, or so-called cryptoassets), such as Bitcoin, have drawn much attention because the underlying distributed ledger technology used therein enables decentralized verification while maintaining cash-like functions.

Meanwhile, some central banks have explored potential application of the distributed ledger technology and issuing their own digital coins for general public or financial institutions – so-called the central bank digital currency initiatives. Over the past 12 months, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) have transformed from a distant concept into the core of the global economic policy agenda. Debates on CBDC have progressed towards adopting CBDC and its implications for the financial system. Such innovations evidently have serious consequences for the monetary system at both national and global levels.

References:

1. Central bank digital currencies: system design and interoperability. BIS, available at: https://www.bis.org/publ/othp42_system_design.pdf

2. Gross J., Schiller J. A model for central bank digital currencies: Do CBDCs disrupt the financial sector? SSRN Electronic Journal, 2020.

3. Schilling L. Risks Involved with CBDCs: On Cash, Privacy, and Information Centralization, 2019, available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers. cfm?abstract_id=3479035

4. Tercero-Lucas D. Central Bank Digital Currencies and Financial Stability in a Modern Monetary System, 2022.

5. Davoodalhosseini S. Central Bank Digital Currency and Monetary Policy. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 2021, 142, 104150. 10.1016/j. jedc.2021.104150

6. Náñez A., Jorge-Vázquez J., Forradellas R. Central Banks Digital Currency: Detection of Optimal Countries for the Implementation of a CBDC and the Implication for Payment Industry Open Innovation. Journal of Open Innovation Technology Market and Complexity, 2021. 7. 10.3390/joitmc7010072

7. Fernandez-Villaverde J., Sanches D., Schilling L., Uhlig H. Central bank digital currency: Central banking for all? Review of Economic Dynamics, 2020, 41. 10.1016/j.red.2020.12.004

8. Andolfatto D. Assessing the Impact of Central Bank Digital Currency on Private Banks. The Economic Journal, 2020, 131. 10.1093/ej/ueaa073

9. Auer R., Cornelli G., Frost J. Rise of the Central Bank Digital Currencies: Drivers, Approaches and Technologies. SSRN Electronic Journal, 2020, 10.2139/ ssrn.3724070

10. Bindseil U. Tiered CBDC and the Financial System. SSRN Electronic Journal, 2020, 10.2139/ssrn.3513422

On Some Obvious and Non-obvious Risks of the Modern Financial System

DOI: 10.33917/es-4.196.2024.18-25

Despite improving economic indicators and revisions towards better forecasts for 2024, systemic threats and risks, which are not always obvious, remain in the global economy. In the article, the author draws attention to a number of new problems and circumstances that are changing financial landscape in the world. In particular, attention is paid to expanding approaches of central banks in new conditions, risks arising from the technological advancement of commercial banks, which requires more careful control to prevent a destabilizing effect on the financial sector as a whole, etc.

References:

1. BIS. Annual Economic Report. Basel, June, 2023, available at: https://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar2023e.htm

2. UN. World Economic Situation and Prospects. May 2024, available at: https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/publication/world-economic-situationand-prospects-as-of-mid-2024/

3. Bank JP Morgan otkroet bolee 500 novykh otdeleniy v blizhayshie tri goda [JP Morgan will Open More than 500 New Branches in the Next Three Years]. Kommersant. 2024. 6 fevralya. URL: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/6494367

4. China’s central bank hints it may add treasury bond trades to policy toolkit. Reuters. April 23, 2024, available at: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/ chinas-central-bank-hints-it-may-add-treasury-bond-trades-policy-toolkit-2024-04-23/

5. UN. World Economic Situation and Prospects. January 2024. UN, available at: https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/publication/world-economicsituation-and-prospects-2024/

6. Roskongress. Zamorozka aktivov. Traditsii i novye printsipy raboty Zapada s aktivami tret’ikh stran [Росконгресс. Roscongress. Freeze of Assets. Traditions and New Principles of Western Work with Assets of Third Countries]. Roskongress, 2023, Dekabr’ available at: https://roscongress.org/materials/ zamorozka-aktivov-samoupravstvo-ili-zakonnyy-shag/

On New Mechanisms for Providing Economic Growth in the Context of Sanctions

DOI: 10.33917/es-4.190.2023.60-63

First the pandemic and then geopolitical tensions in the world created new conditions and posed new challenges for the economies. Among the mechanisms, needed to finance increased government spending, many countries have begun to apply the approaches of the so-called Modern Monetary Theory. It seems that the use of its elements could also be expedient in Russia to finance the necessary transformation of the economy.

References:

1.World Bank. Global Economic Prospects. June 2023. URL: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/6e892b75-2594-4901-a036-46d0dec1e753/content.

2. Moiseev S.R. Khaip vokrug (ne)denezhnoi (ne)teorii [Hype around (non)Monetary (non)Theory]. Voprosy ekonomiki, 2019, no 9, pp. 112–122.

3. Ershov M.V. Kak finansirovat’ novye gosraskhody: vozmozhnye mekhanizmy v usloviyakh sanktsii [How to Finance New Government Spendings: Possible Mechanisms in the Environment of Sanctions]. Ekonomicheskie strategii, 2022, no 6, pp. 26–29. DOI: 10.33917/es-6.186.2022.26-29.

How to Finance New Government Spendings: Possible Mechanisms in the Environment of Sanctions

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33917/es-6.186.2022.26-29

Sanctions against the Russian Federation have created fundamentally new conditions for the functioning of the Russian economy.

This poses new challenges, which require government spendings increase. It appears that Russian regulators have unused mechanisms, the use of which will provide the economy with new money, without complicating the situation of other sectors. The article suggests mechanisms that highlights internal sources of liquidity formation for the economy. In the environment of sanctions, such mechanisms also increase the independence of monetary policy from external constraints.

References:

1. Kommentarii Banka Rossii po operatsiyam na rynke gosudarstvennogo dolga [Bank of Russia’s Commentary on Operations in the Government Debt Market]. Bank of Russia, 2022, 18 marta, available at: http://www.cbr.ru/eng/press/event/?id=12763.

2. TsB RF [Central Bank of the Russian Federation]. Obzor riskov finansovykh rynkov, 2022, no 2–3(60–61), fevral’-mart.

3. Bank Rossii. Osnovnye napravleniya edinoi gosudarstvennoi denezhno-kreditnoi politiki na 2023 god i period 2024 i 2025 godov: Proekt ot 11 avgusta 2022 g. [Bank of Russia. Guidelines for the Single State Monetary Policy for 2023 and the Period of 2024 and 2025: the Draft of August 11, 2022]. Bank Rossii, pp. 24–25, available at: https://cbr.ru/about_br/publ/ondkp/on_2023_2025/

4. Ershov M.V. Kakaya ekonomicheskaya politika nuzhna Rossii v usloviyakh sanktsii? [What Kind of Economic Policy does Russia Need in the Face of Sanctions?]. Voprosy ekonomiki, 2014, no 12, pp. 37–53.

Assessment of the Sanctions Impact on the Economic Situation in the Russian Federation

#1. Event Horison
Assessment of the Sanctions Impact on the Economic Situation in the Russian Federation

Introduction of sanctions, contrary to the statements of Russian politicians, has an impact on the Russian economy, and the impact is quite negative. The crisis in the Russian economy is confirmed by macro-indicators. Despite this, distortion of statistical data allows to demonstrate the illusion of economic growth, although it is seen only in certain sectors of economy. Real incomes of the population have also decreased and continue to fall down. The article proposes a number of strategic measures that will allow to minimize the damage caused by the imposed sanctions and even partially to benefit from them for the Russian economy.

The System of Stifling Tricks of the Bank of Russia

#10. Talkative Times

Implemented in recent years monetary and issuing policy of the Bank of Russia artificially stifles development of the domestic economy, destroys the remnants of science intensive industries, preserves the technological backwardness and strengthens Russia’s status of the “resource colony” and the end market for transnational capital.

Russia And the International Crisis: the First Results

#9. Plus-minus 40

The crisis has revealed the existence of strategic contradiction in the Russian government, which leads to the fact that ministers of the different “blocks” act in the worst case independently of one another, at best — uncoordinated.